Léa Sebastien

From NIMBY to enlightened resistance: a framework proposal to decrypt land-use disputes based on a landfill opposition case in France

ABSTRACT Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY) supporters are presented as citizens in opposition to local developments due to their spatial proximity. However, these conflicts have proven much more complex than the NIMBY concept can explain. The objective of this paper is to provide a framework to facilitate the understanding of opposition movements and how they can affect society at large, triggering social change. The conceptual framework is applied to a case of local opposition to a landfill project in Essonne, France. Through the analysis of the structure of the opposition movement and its changes over time, the author shows how it can evolve into a social movement that enriches democracy through the constitution of four types of capital: social, scientific, patrimonial and political. The author argues that scientific and patrimonial capitals allow social capital to evolve into political capital. The shift from being a self-interest to a civic interest movement is called enlightened resistance, which reveals local public interest, called territorial interests. When studying environmental controversies, the author emphasises the importance of recognizing the evolution through time of (1) social landscape, (2) different types of legitimate knowledge, (3) the role of place attachment, and (4) the political dimension of identities.

Environmental justice and ecological debt in Belgium: The UMICORE case

The harbour city of Antwerp (Belgium) has a long history of expanding industrialisation with impacts on the environment and inhabitants’ health. Life expectancy in Antwerp is two years shorter than the average in Flanders, a highly industrialised region in itself. In the suburb of Hoboken, where UPMR runs the world’s largest precious metals recycling unit, the link between pollution and health is intriguing. Although the plant has implemented substantial ecological modernisation since the 1970s, the legacy of 122 years of historic pollution is still present: lead, arsenic and cadmium levels in the soil increase with proximity to the factory, as does the level of lead in the blood of toddlers and infants. Cancers are significantly more frequent in Hoboken than in Flanders or Antwerp, particularly lung cancers, the type most likely to result from the plants activities. Since the early 1920s local actors have been actively asking for cleaner air, decontamination and compensation. In 2004, the company paid 77 million € for a clean-up of the area in closest proximity to its plants in Hoboken and Olen. UPMR drastically reduced emissions and is now recognised as one of the most sustainable companies in Belgium. However, claims of UPMR management to have recognised the company’s ‘historic responsibility’ have so far translated mostly into cleaning up surface contamination in the area. This paper sets the clean-up operation of the company within a framework of ecological debt, calculating the amount that UPMR owes to the environment and nearby residents, with a focus on health damages and loss of capabilities, the major collateral damages inflicted by UMPR’s direct and recognised environmental impacts. The best available studies on damage to health and crops in Hoboken are combined with existing and relevant calculations on the cost of illness, the value of human life and the economic value of gardening for results that provide insights on how to apply the ecological debt concept to a single industrial plant, and inform recommendations for actions to be taken by the chemical industry and the government of Belgium. The concept of post-normal science also helps to explain why the difficult exercise of calculating the ecological debt for a single industrial plant, despite its drawbacks on accuracy, is relevant and urgently needed. The final results should not be interpreted as exact figures, but as indicative of the scale of indirect damages to the real economy, through the study of direct damages to the environment and to inhabitants.Preface Introduction Part I: Social Metabolism 1. Aid, Social Metabolism and Social Conflict in the Nicobar Islands 2. The Mining Enclave of the Cordillera del Condor 3. The Manta-Manaus Project 4. High Speed Transport Infrastructure in Italy 5. Life and livelihood in Kenyas Tana Delta 6. South Africas Minerals-Energy Complex Part II: Participation and Institutions 7. Local Governance and Environment Investments in Hiware Bazar, India 8. Participatory Forest Management in Mendha Lekha, India 9. Forestry and Communities in Cameroon 10. The Waste Crisis in Campania, Italy 11. The Sedentarization of Tibetan Nomads Part III: Valuation and Environmental Policy 12. Nautical Tourism Development in the Lastovo Islands Nature Park 13. Local Communities and Management of the Djerdap Protected Area in Serbia 14. Payments for Ecosystem Services in India from the Bottom-Up 15. The Potential of Redd and Legal Reserve Compensation in Mato Grosso, Brazil 16. Environmental Justice and Ecological Debt in Belgium 17. Multidimensional valuation for socio-ecological conflict analysis in Costa Rica 18. The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity 19. Conclusion